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boot.ini vanishes !!

  • 27-10-2008 01:34AM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,165 ✭✭✭


    Ok a totally weird problem to get ye'r teeth into - or not ?!

    A customer created a new account on his XP Pro Dell XPS computer. Played a couple of games online and shut down. Next day the computer told him his Boot.ini file was invalid/missing and that the c:\windows\system32\hal.dll file was missing and needed to be reinstalled.

    I ran the R option from a windows XP cd but unfortunately he has forgotten his Admin password. I didn't have my Password changer cd with me so opted to install a fresh XP to a different directory.

    After the install I r-clicked My computer > properties>Advances>Start up Recovery and edited the boot.ini from here. I thought it strange that there was no entry for the old installation as in previous similar situation there had been. Anyway I added it and saved the file and rebooted. At the OS options I selected the old install and up came the users. I logged in and all seemed fine. Ran a virus scan (McAfee installed an up to date) and some apps and restarted the machine to be sure.

    This time I got no options screen and the system tried to start from the fresh install at c:\WINNT where I'd put it but it failed with the same warning. Bad or missing boot.ini and missing c:\winnt\system32\hal.dll.

    Again I went to the Recovery console and logged into the fresh install. But there was no boot.ini file ! I ran bootcfg /rebuild and it found both installs and created a new boot.ini file confirmed by checking the root dir at c:\ . Rebooted the machine and was again offered the OS selection screen, selected the old install and it booted ok. Went to the C drive and checked that the boot.ini file was present and it was. Made a copy and named it boot.txt and restarted the system. The error happened again - bad/missing boot.ini - hal.dll missing etc.

    Again the R option and into the recovery console and rebuilt the the boot.in and booted into the original XP install. This time the boot.ini file was present in C:\ as was the boot.txt. I left this explorer window open while I did some other checks but when I came back to it both boot.ini AND boot.txt were gone !!! Vanished !?

    Is there a virus that does this ? As I said I've scanned the system and there are no odd processes running, in fact the system runs quite well for a P4 3.0GHz with 2GB RAM and a pair of 160GB drives (SATA RAID) and 2 SLI config GeForce 7600 cards.

    Anyone care to speculate before I reformat ? Rootkit maybe ?

    By the way the user does a lot of online gaming.

    ZEN


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,165 ✭✭✭ZENER


    I'm glad to see I'm not the only one stumped so. Anyway ended up reinstalling Windows XP. Life is too short to waste time on this stuff.

    ZEN


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